


lost

by quiettewandering



Series: Spirk Tumblr Prompts [8]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Amnesiac Spock, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 14:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19297519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiettewandering/pseuds/quiettewandering
Summary: Jim and Spock are now living together after the events of Spock's death and resurrection, with one simple but huge problem: Spock still doesn't remember their past relationship.





	lost

**Author's Note:**

> just a little angsty thing to tide you guys over before i continue posting my long k/s wip :)

Jim wakes with a gasp, his arms reaching, hands scrambling against the sheets. “Spock.  _Spock_ —”

His eyes snap open to the soft outlines in his bedroom, illuminated by the dim light from the outside street lights. He stares at the empty pillow next to him while his breathing becomes steadier, calmer.

He scrubs a hand over his face. Pushes himself into a sitting position, the sheets crinkling beneath him.

“Jim.”

The tall figure in the open door makes him pause for a good few moments. Finally, Jim lets out a sigh, shoulders sagging. “I’m sorry, Spock. Did I wake you?”

Spock takes a tentative step forward. “I heard you calling for me.”

“I wasn’t,” Jim says too quickly. “Not exactly. It was just a dream.” He looks away.

“I see.” Spock pivots himself toward the door. “I apologize for my error.”

Putting a hand against his forehead, Jim says, before Spock can leave, “I was confused. I was calling for you because I thought you were gone, and—I was confused.”

“Your meaning of ‘gone’ being when I was temporarily dead,” Spock says, robes settling around him as he stands straight, “correct?”

 

“Yes,” Jim sighs. “Yes, that’s correct.”

“You called for me in the dream even though you assumed I would not answer.”

“No, it’s just—” Jim can’t even look into Spock’s too-vacant expression. “Sometimes it’s a very human, very illogical act to call out for loved ones in our dreams. A loved one that we’ve lost, in hopes that maybe calling for them will guide them home again.”

Spock nods. “You experienced these dreams during my death, then, as well.”

It’s not a question, but Jim answers anyway: “Yes, Spock, I did.”

“I see.”

Jim stares at his hands. Silence hangs awkwardly between them.

It was Bones’ idea for them to live together after coming back planetside. That maybe dwelling in their old apartment together would spark some sort of memory in Spock, some sort of familiarity as to their previous relationship.

But what’s happened is worse than Spock not remembering. He certainly does remember; Jim can see it in the way Spock grazes his fingers over the armchair where they first made love after moving in together, can see it when Spock looks curiously at their garden in the back where Jim would always read in the sunshine while Spock tended to his exotic plants. Jim can see Spock remember, slowly, through every corner and detail where the both of them lovingly planted their memories.

Spock just doesn’t seem to feel the emotions that accompany these remembrances. The love won’t simply sprout back, even though the memories will.

So it’d better, Jim concludes, that Spock rather not remember at all. The confused glance in his eyes makes him feel as if he’s still lost to Jim.

“Do you still consider me a loved one, Jim?”

Head snapping up, Jim practically gapes at Spock. Their bond severed upon Spock’s death, but it’s like he can still sense Jim’s thoughts. “Of course I do, Spock,” he insists.

“Despite the fact that I do not remember what that love between us accurately felt like,” Spock clarifies.

A new, terrifying thought occurs to Jim. He rises quickly from his bed, foot nearly tripping over his bedsheet in his haste. “Spock, just because you aren’t able to reciprocate or remember our relationship, doesn’t mean that those feelings on my end are gone,” Jim says. “I’m sorry if I’ve ever indicated that to you.”

 

Spock straightens further. “Negative,” he intones, “you did not.” He minutely shifts his weight to his left side, eyes flickering down to his feet. “However, under the circumstances, it is a logical conclusion.”

Jim takes a step forward. “Spock—”

“My inability to reciprocate your feelings, much less remember them, will inevitably lead you to seek comfort and love elsewhere,” Spock continues. “It is human nature to want to be loved. In the last 3.45 weeks, I have not given you any indication or hope that I would be a source of this feeling to you. Therefore, the only logical conclusion I can draw is that you eventually detach your affections, and seek a mutual romantic engagement elsewhere.”

“Spock,” Jim says, now almost in front of him, hands reaching out but not quite knowing where they will land, “please, stop speaking nonsense, just—”

“Jim, I am still lost to you,” Spock says. He finally makes firm eye contact with him, making Jim pause. “It is why I hear you call out for me almost every night.” He closes his eyes, briefly. “I cannot give you what you need.”

Jim feels his face twist into something complicated. His heart feels like it fell right into his shoes. Damn Bones for thinking this was a good idea, and damn him for not realizing that this is just as hard on Spock as it is on Jim—maybe even more so. Jim’s hands finally make their destination, resting on Spock’s upper arms, tentatively, so that Spock could pull away if he wanted to. He doesn’t.

 

“I need to make something abundantly clear,” Jim says softly in the air between them. “Something that I irresponsibly didn’t make clear before.”

Spock looks at him curiously, but is silent, lets him continue.

“This…  _melancholy_ , I suppose you could call it, that I’m experiencing,” Jim says, “it has no bearing on my feelings for you. I won’t lie to you and tell you that it hasn’t been hard, seeing what little progress we’re both making toward having our relationship as it was again. It’s… quite painful.” He sees a muscle to the left of Spock’s lips twitch, quickly adds, “But it doesn’t mean that it will always be this way. That this isn’t all worth it.”

 

“Your entire argument is on the hypothesis that I will feel the same love for you again as I did before,” Spock nearly whispers. “It is a hypothesis that could be proven wrong.”

“We found each other before,” Jim says, almost urgently, his hands gripping Spock’s arms hard enough to bruise. “A Vulcan who proclaimed to have no feelings at all and a far too emotional human. You fell in love with me once.”

“I am not the same—”

“Bullshit, Spock,” Jim snaps, but it has no real anger behind it, only insistence. “You still despise sugar in your coffee. You still hate my driving. In the market yesterday, you still picked out all your favorite vegetables. You insist, as you did when living in this apartment before, sitting on the armchair in the east corner of the room instead of the west, because of the sun placement in the afternoon.” He shakes his head, chokes out, “You feel lost to me, yes. But only romantically. The dear friend that I know and love—he’s there. And the rest—the rest can come later. Or never at all. But I will remain here, looking for you, in case it does.”

Spock opens his mouth to reply; shuts it. He tilts his head in that curious way, like Jim is one of his fascinating experiments to fully discover and dissect. There’s something in his eyes, something that Jim hasn’t seen since they pressed hands against the glass in a desperate attempt to feel each other one last time, something that Jim hesitates to name.

Spock’s hand raises, tentatively, and his fingers brush against Jim’s cheek. Jim closes his eyes at the swell of feeling that simple touch elicits.

“You are my t’hy’la,” Spock murmurs. “It’s one determinable fact that I know.”

Jim can feel his eyes well with tears, so he keeps them closed. “Yes, Spock, I am.”

“You are my t’hy’la,” Spock says again, illogically, because repeating oneself is not Vulcan, and it is especially not Vulcan to grasp Jim’s hands and hold them to his lips, “and I will find my way back to you.”

Jim thinks, as he tilts his head down toward their clasped hands, eyes leaking in earnest now, feeling something thrum in the back of his mind where the bond once took hold, that perhaps his dream was incorrect.

Perhaps Spock isn’t so lost to him after all.

**Author's Note:**

> please let me know what you thought! I'd love any feedback.


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